Typewriter
by altilde
Summary: chapter five: alfred discovers that in order to do the right things, sometimes drugs are necessary. meanwhile, the joker discovers that despite what they say, admitting you have a problem actually doesn't help at all.
1. a game

The clicking of a typewriter. He listens closely to it, picking up the beginning of the memory and untangling it from the skein, following with his fingers and then his hands. The tapping of a song he heard once, or maybe one all in his head. He constructs the image of a night lit well and blue, gravel crunching underfoot as they ran across rooftops, the patter and footfalls shaping the tune he improvises as they sprint, but before he can remember where they were running to, or maybe even who they were, or even more maybe if they ever existed, the thread runs out, and The Good Doctor calls out to him.

"Excuse me," says The Good Doctor awkwardly. 'Excuse me' is not the proper thing to say, and The Good Doctor knows it. However, they refuse to accept his name as anything but a continuation of his fantasies, and they cannot use the usual attention gaining phrases like "Hey you!", because they are too alarming and condescending to the delicate constitutions of the patients. These psychotherapy types are so easy to analyze.

"I'm sorry," he says and smiles. He tries to smile as much as possible in here, because it makes the scars look worse, and the beautiful nurses take pity on his damaged and charismatic soul, and treat him almost close to nicely. "I was distracted by the typewriter."

The Good Doctor makes a concerned face. "Typewriter?"

He keeps smiling, even though inside he wants to smack himself in the head with a two-by-four._ Of course there isn't a typewriter; you're crazy, remember?_ And this is a hospital for crazy people. Here they can rebuild him; they can make him better. Stronger. Faster than he was before.

Oh well, he can still see some use to be gained from the situation, and he has never been one to miss the beat. "What?" he asks innocently.

"You just said you were distracted by a typewriter."

"When?"

"Not thirty seconds ago."

"I most certainly did not," he huffs. He points two fingers at the doctor and shakes them, puts on his most indignant tone. "I came to this hospital to get better, not to be charged with such wild and humiliating accusations!" He licks his lips. "Frankly sir," he says, and lets the pause hang here dramatically, "I am deeply offended. I have half a mind to pack my things and leave this very instant." Another pause. He leans back in his folding chair and folds his arms. "And don't expect that you'll get a good review."

The Good Doctor stares at him intensely for some moments. "I'm sorry," he says slowly. He looks down at his legal pad and scratches something, looks back up at him, scratches some more, shakes his head. The Good Doctor is balding, wears thick glasses, and from the look of his skin, never leaves the hospital while it's still light out.

Sometimes if he's very good, he can convince the nurses to take him to the dayroom, which has a view of the parking lot, and he watches The Good Doctor arrive and leave. He drives a Honda. Every day he parks in the same spot. He wears his lab coat all the time.

"Dr. Lehman," says a nurse as she pokes her head through the door, "the session is over." She smiles at the patient, and he peeks out from under his brow and smiles back sheepishly. The Good Doctor rises from his chair, adjusts his coat, and turns to the door. "Yes, well," he stalls, "you've made very good progress today. I will see you again in two days." He nods, and hurries out the door.

The nurse creeps in, un-straps his wrists from the white metal chair, and helps ease him up. He finds it harder to get around these days, with the dizziness and tingling of the drugs they pump into him. Not to mention, two weeks ago he got flipped over in a truck. He thinks.

"There, there," coos the nurse as she supports his arm. Together they shuffle to the door and down the hallway, his soft slippers and her canvas house shoes making little more noise than a courteous mouse. Once they are back in his room, the nurse lays him onto the bed, removes his slippers, and attaches his soft restraints to the handrails. Then, almost apologetically, she attaches the handcuffs. She flitters about the room, readying his next dose of medication. Through the wall, he can hear the ravaged ragged breathing of one Jonathon Crane, suffering through another round of nightmares. He finds the irony of a nightmare beset Crane too be one of those things too perfect for words, and in any other setting it would keep him in giggles for hours, but here, right now, the nurse is ready with the candy, and he does not want to scare her and jeopardize the one thing that keeps him (ha ha) sane.

She asks if there is anything she can get him. A glass of water. Anything.

He says no, smiles, and she smiles back. She shuts the light. She leaves. And he is still smiling. He falls asleep smiling.

He knows that his dreams will be clear.


	2. a visit

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When he wakes up, he hears the typewriter again. He probes the sound with his fingertips, creeping, settling lightly against the wall to not scare the memory away. He gets out of bed and traces its path to the corner of the room, with every step, he shrinks, until he is only the size of a spider, crawling purposely with all of his eight legs towards the birds that are clicking their beaks against the sunny, grassy ground with the steady punching of keys. Beyond the birds he can see a young tousled boy. A blonde sniveling brat: one tiny grubby hand at his mouth, and the other reaching up to grasp a slender hand. He scurries faster, some strange compulsion demanding that he see more of the hand, pushing him towards the sunlit scene. But he has failed to remember the clicking, and before he can even reach the child's scent, he is plucked from the grass and swallowed, falling into the compressing darkness, legs flailing uselessly.

He does not want to lose that hand. He cannot lose that hand. "No!" he cries. "Nononono!" He swings his arms wildly, trying to break from the Darkness' hold. He tears one arm free and smashes his fist into its mouth, and in its momentary stun, he frees his other arm and jumps to attack. He knocks the Darkness to the floor and falls on top of it, beating the head with his fists and clawing at the lips with his bitten nails. "Bring it back!" he shouts, trying to pry his fingers underneath its cracks. "Bring it back! I want it back!" The tears, rage, and panic blind him, and he does not see the fist that swings round and connects with the side of his skull.

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When he wakes up, he is once again strapped to the bed, but this time with cable instead of the easily escapable soft restraints the hospital uses. He smiles briefly, and then puts on his most pained face. "Oh…my head," he groans. "Why is it always the head with you?"

He feels a little put out when he gets no reply, but soldiers on regardless. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that, you know? Especially not here. These crazies, well, who knows what it'd do to their fragile psyches!"

"You were having a nightmare," comes the gruff voice.

"I was not!" he pouts, offended that anyone could think so little of him. As if he would play slave to his own mind like that piece of trash in the room next door.

"You attacked me."

"Yes, well, you're the Batman. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?" He giggles, and his whole body shakes against the bed frame. "I guess I need to read my training manual again. I'm still new you know, so cut me a little slack!"

The Batman steps into the feeble moonlight which slips through the tinted and barred window. "You were shouting, hysterical" he gravels, and then pauses, and tries but fails to hide the smugness in his next words. "You were crying."

The Joker tries to bring a hand up to feel his face, but can't raise his wrist any more than a few inches off the mattress. Frustrated, he bangs his fists a few times, and falls back to the thin sterile pillow. He waggles his tongue and his eyes, and rolls his head from ear to ear. "Weeellll," he drawls, "you know how I get when you interrupt my beauty rest, honey. Do you want me to have bags under my eyes at that charity event tomorrow? Think of what the paparazzi would say!"

The Batman says nothing, and for a few minutes, the only sound is the rustle of disposable cotton as the Joker writhes on his cot, and an occasional whinny of laughter.

"You're not a very good visitor, you know that? You should've brought flowers. Unless of course, this isn't a social visit?"

The Batman says nothing, makes no move.

The Joker clears his throat. "That was your cue," he whispers, "to ah, tell me what you're here for?"

Still, the Batman says nothing, and makes no move.

The Joker frowns. Sure, his Batman is supposed to be the straight man, but this is a little extreme. He will have to break some windows to make some eggs, as the saying goes. He wants to laugh.

"Maybe," he says slowly, "you're here to get revenge. For that whore I killed…"

And before he can put the period on his sentence, Batman is pinning his throat to the mattress with both of his hands, snarling into his face his face like a mad dog. The Joker gasps for breaths and laughs in between them. Yes. This is perfect. This is what he wants.

"Don't you dare," growls the cigarette voice. "Don't you dare speak of her!"

"Oh, touchy!" gasps the Joker. "I told you I was jealous, didn't I?" A wheezing breath, a laugh, and another breath. "How could you think I'd let anyone else have you?" He loses himself in hysterics for a while, and begins to feel lightheaded. The hands still haven't let up on his throat. "Choking a restrained man," he ekes out, eyes closing. "Oh how the mighty have fallen—I'm so proud!"

He takes deep breaths that reach the back of his throat, and shakes the whole bed with his laughter. Once he's calmed down, he looks around the room for the Bat, but cannot see him. He knows that he's still there though. He can feel his brooding.

"I don't think that's why you've come, though," he says, smiling. "Truth is, I don't think you _know_ why you're here."

"Truly, I'm touched," he says earnestly, but he says it to an empty room.


	3. a date

**I wrote a chapter describing how the Joker escapes from Arkham, but aside from one mildly entertaining conversation between the clown and his doctor, I don't think it added anything to the story.**

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Chapter 3: a date.

"Oh my goodness, sir! What happened?" asks the nurse the next morning. He opens his eyes and sees her peering down at his neck, where he imagines he now has a beautiful choker (ha ha) of bruises. Her fingers run over the tendons and skin, and he leans into the touch. It has been a long time since any woman got close enough to touch him, not counting, of course, when he grabs their hair and holds a knife to their throat. He does not particularly mind, and in fact mostly prefers the latter method of human interaction, but still…the sensation of care is novel. He decides it needs to stop.

"Batman did it, miss," he says quietly. His eyes widen, and his forehead wrinkles. He pulls at his soft restraints pathetically, rattling the handcuffs as well, wondering if the Bat had come back to remove his evidence. The thought of that man (if he could be called that) standing vigil over his defenseless sleeping body was strangely titillating. "He came in here last night, tied me down, and started to choke me." The nurse frowns, and scribbles a note in her clipboard. "Let's get your morning medication, shall we?" she asks sweetly.

He smiles and hums a small tune as she turns to ready the injections. "I like the Batman," he says cheerfully. "I like him a lot. I think we're gonna be best friends." He drums his fingers against the bed rail and wiggles his toes. "Do you think he feels the same way about me? Huh? Do you?"

The nurse has a strained smile on her face as she walks back to the bed and swabs his arm. She says nothing. "We have a date tomorrow," he whispers to her. "He's taking me to a _charity event_. One of those fancy Bruce Wayne shindigs no doubt." Once she is finished, she all but runs out of the room.

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The typewriter comes again. This time, he does not follow the memory gently, but instead runs after it with all his might until he trips and falls into the deep blackness of it, and when he lands, he is sitting at a table in a sunny kitchen with a placemat and a glass in front of him. His hands are small, and the light that comes through the sliding glass door is yellow. The table is set for no one but him.

The clicking of keys has become the popping and sizzling of something frying, a sound he recognizes from its similarity to the noise of cooking flesh. Across from him is a stove, and standing by it with a frying pan is a woman. He wants to see her face, but her head is turned away, so he settles for studying the rest of her. A white house dress and sensible shoes. A light blue flowered apron. She wears oven mitts, and lets her auburn hair fall down around her shoulders. She is hunched over, and he can smell her cigarette.

He looks through the windows at the full and bright trees. This is a summer morning.

The woman takes the still sizzling pan off the stove and brings it over to where he sits. He strains to see her face, but the fall of hair blocks her features. "Don't fidget," she says as she dumps the grilled cheese sandwich onto his plate. She takes a drag from her cigarette, taps the ash, and walks back to the stove. "We didn't have no eggs or nothing," she sighs "I forgot to get the groceries yesterday. Let it cool before you touch it."

She cuts a square of butter and throws it into the pan. The popping sounds return, but this time with the regularity of a ticking clock. He looks at his hands, and finds that they have grown into the bitten and stained things he knows to be his own. When he looks back up, he is in the classroom, and he recognizes the steady clicking noise as the countdown of the bombs he's placed inside each student's desk.

Most of the children are keeping quiet enough behind their mufflers, but the pudgy kid in the corner is still managing to make a racket despite his duct tape gag. The teacher, too, looks to be a problem. He can see the thoughts racing through her head as to how she can reach the emergency phone in the hallway. Too bad she doesn't know that he disconnected the line.

He walks over to the door and checks the lock, and then jumps onto the pudgy kid's desk. His shrieking has reached a crescendo now, and this close, the Joker can see the tears and snot dripping down his face. Disgusting.

He crouches down on the desk and ducks his head so that he and the sniveling brat are eye to eye. He finds that this is the most successful intimidation method with the shy kind. Not that this kid needs to be intimidated further, of course, but the Joker is getting bored waiting. He wants to see how much he can scare this kid before he wets his pants.

"You know," he almost whispers, "you're being like, totally lame right now." The kid just shrieks louder, and the noise begins to grate on him. "I mean," he says, and then licks his lips. "I mean, I bet you didn't get a lot of girls before." He eyes the kid from the floor up. "Definitely not, no. You just weren't blessed like some of us fortunate lot." He grins and gestures to himself. "But, you aren't doing_ anything _to help your situation."

The kid dissolves into shrill heaving, like a dog that's been locked in a cage for too long, or maybe (ha ha) a school fire alarm.

The Joker grits his teeth, and flicks open a butterfly knife. "What girl is going to want to touch someone who's more of a wimp than they are?" He holds the point against the kid's neck and grins. "You need to learn to laugh in the face of danger!"

This slobbering mess. His eyes roll back into his head and he passes out.

The Joker jumps off the desk and opens the top to check the clock inside. "Pathetic. That didn't even kill two minutes," he pouts. Suddenly there is a loud zap, and a muffled shriek, and the Joker grins and turns around to see the teacher sprawled on the floor with all of her hair standing on end. He laughs gleefully and runs over to her.

"I bet none of you tried that before!" he yells to the class. He picks the hand buzzer off of the door handle. "Just like you can buy off the comic books, kids," he says in between giggles. "'Cept mine's a little bit stronger, I bet." He sighs contentedly and looks down at the teacher, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "You probably should try that one at home. It's a real _killer_ at parties." He laughs again.

He hears the hinges squeal and break barely seconds before the doors falls in and hits him in the back. He falls to his face with an 'oomph' as all the air is pushed out of his lungs. He lays there stunned on the tiled floor for a few seconds, briefly registering the pain from a jammed finger and bitten tongue, before he gathers his hands under him and tries to push himself up, but there is someone standing or sitting on the door holding him down.

"Batsy!" he laughs. "You need to lose some serious weight."

The door is lifted off of him, but before he can even begin to get up, a hand grabs the back of his coat and hurls him into the desk at the front of the room. The same hand turns him around, and then an arm crushes his neck against the varnished wood.

The Joker laughs and Batman growls and shoves his forearm harder against the clown's windpipe.

"Why are you here?" comes that heavy voice. The Joker almost faints; he's missed it so much. Or maybe that's just the lack of oxygen reaching his brain. He laughs at that as much as he can, with a plate of Kevlar digging into his neck.

He feels the arm let up a little, and he lets out a few breathy gasps of laughter. "I'm here to make…a donation," he says around a smile. "Bruce Wayne…held a charity event…here…last night." He swallows, and feels the pressure on his Adam's apple. "I believe in being…fashionably…late," he manages to gasp out.

Batman snarls and throws him against the wall. He stalks over and picks the Joker up by his lapels. The clown continues to laugh, until Batman punches him in the jaw and he falls to the floor.

"Ah…god," he mumbles as he brings himself to his knees. He giggles with an open mouth, and the blood falls from between his lips and teeth. "Keep this up and I'll be as ugly as Tubby over there."

Batman kicks him in the stomach, and he falls onto his back, but when the vigilante leans down to pick him up once more, the Joker slams his hand into the side of his cowl, and the buzzer in his palm sends electricity through the graphite.

The black figure staggers back and the Joker scrambles to his feet. "You'll never catch me, copper!" he yells as he runs out the door. Batman takes a lurching step forward, waits a few seconds to catch his bearings, and follows after him. He catches a glimpse of a purple coat disappearing through the door to the stairwell, and runs after. He hears the echoing of heavy boots on the stairs above, and takes the steps three at a time as he rushes towards the noise. The footfalls lead him to a closed metal door, and when he opens it, he finds himself on the roof.

It is a cold night. This high up, the wind blows mercilessly. It catches the purple coat of the man standing twenty feet in front of him, and snaps it with a sound like gunfire. Reflecting off the city lights, Batman can see the knives sewn into the lining. The Joker is grinning, standing with his hands limp by his sides, but in one fist is a 5 inch Smith and Wesson 1911 38 Super.

The Joker points the gun at the dark figure opposite. "This is what you get," he says in his best Clint Eastwood voice. "This is what you get, for interrupting my beauty sleep."

"Uhp uhp uhp!" he says as Batman takes a step forward. "I wasn't done yet!"

He gestures to his kohl smeared eyes with the barrel. "You see that? You see what you did?" He licks his lips and grins. "Bags."

The Joker scrambles to get the gun in front of him as the Bat rushes forwards. The crime fighter doesn't even flinch at the gunshot, and ignores the rubber bullet that bounces harmlessly off his chest. He crashes into the scrawny clown, knocking him to the ground and falling on top of him.

The Joker laughs. "We seem to be in this position a lot."

The Batman knocks the clown's head against the tar of the roof only twice before he hears the sirens. "Uh oh," gurgles the criminal. He hacks, turns his head, and spits out the blood filling up his mouth. "The paparazzi are here."

"Good," snarls the vigilante. "They'll put you back where you belong."

"Ah ah ah," the Joker says. He brings his hands up in a gesture of peace. "I don't think you want them to have me just yet. How else will you find out how out about the bombs?" Inwardly, the Joker smiles with the satisfaction of seeing the shock on his enemy's face. "Uh oh," he mock pouts, "guess I just told you anyways."

When his attacker rises, the Joker crawls backwards until he reaches a wall. He leans against it and tries to settle his dizziness as he watches the Bat's internal struggle. Once he feels well enough to speak without throwing up, he calls out weakly, "By my count, they've only got about…forty-five seconds."

Batman runs to the door and jumps down the stairs amidst the echoing sounds of laughter. He reaches the classroom and sees the crying children still gagged and tied to their chairs with duct tape. This time, he hears the faint clicking of the 28 bombs he missed the first time. The teacher has recovered and moved to sit by her desk. Batman walks over to her and rips the tape off her mouth.

"Where did he put the explosives?" he growls.

"They're in the desks!" the teacher cries. "All of them! Oh god, oh god, oh god…please, god." He leaves the stuttering woman and lifts up the lid of the desk nearest to him. Sure enough, inside is a burlap sack printed with a big black dollar sign. Tired to the bag is a small alarm clock, showing thirty seconds and counting down. A quick peek in the desk to the right reveals a similar set-up.

The wires are easy enough to disconnect, but he is in the middle of disarming the fourth desk when he hears a series of popping noises, and the screaming of 28 children and one teacher.

Batman, still crouched over the wires, surveys the scene in shock that never shows on his face, but he jumps when a hand falls on his shoulder. He looks up at Commissioner Gordon, and then back at the classroom. Gordon takes in the crying children, knocked to the floor but still conscious, and the piles of 100 bills covering the floor and still falling from the ceiling. "What is this?" asks the officer.

The Batman rises and brushes himself off. The Joker is probably far away by now, he figures. The clown had won this time. But he also figures it doesn't really matter. He hasn't known his enemy for very long, but he thinks he has him figured out. He knows the clown will always give him another opportunity.

The vigilante gathers his cape about his shoulders and walks out the door.

The commissioner just barely hears him call out, "It's a donation."


	4. an interlude

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**4: an interlude.**

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Two weeks later, and he finally stops throwing up. He doesn't know whether it's from the concussion he undoubtedly received when his head met the tar ceiling of the schoolhouse, or maybe just withdrawal symptoms from the psych meds they had him on. Really, the cause doesn't matter because either way he can't do a thing about it. The treatments for both simply require time to pass.

Unfortunately, this means sick leave.

He doesn't get a lot of vacation time, and he just splurged and spent what little he had luxuriously vacationing at Arkham. Robbing a bank isn't really that successful when you have to stop and heave every five minutes. He doesn't care much about dignity, but he cares about money even less.

Gasoline and guns might cost cheap, but they do cost something. He had a little cash stowed away in the dusty corners of the company warehouses, but he blew it all on a new suit and a hefty charity donation. He is nothing if not generous.

So, now he has nothing.

While he waits to stop expelling his guts, he wears jackets with high collars and sleeps in homeless shelters. By day he still sleeps mostly, in alleys and on benches, but as much as he can he wanders the narrows; he may be a CEO, but getting to know the worker bees is important for any healthy company. It lets them know that you really care.

He hasn't had an 'episode' as he likes to call them since he got fired from his job as a substitute teacher. He tries his hardest not to think about them, and for the most part he succeeds. He's very good at forgetting the things he wants to forget, but sometimes, in the darkest part of night when he's laying on a scratchy cot next to a foul-smelling drunk, he will hear the dripping of a leaky faucet or the tapping of a shoe and he will begin to panic. The episodes, whether they be hallucination or memory or something else, are not in his control and therefore scare him like a childhood fiend. They send him ducking under the covers. They are his own personal boogeyman.

One thing he is not afraid of is admitting this weakness to himself. He is frightened of his lapses, and has good reason to be. Contrary to what Gotham and the Bat might want to believe, he knows he's not crazy. He's probably the sanest person in the entire city. He has been down that unstable road before though (it is one of those things he very successfully forgets), and he doesn't have those sorts of problems anymore. He doesn't have problems like these anymore.

So, now he has nothing.

The homeless shelter has its disadvantages, but at least it restores his faith in humanity. He chats with the bums who take refuge there during the winter nights, and what he hears warms his heart better than any government supplied space heater. These are men who have cast off society's rules. A lot of them had all the things that people nowadays think they need: careers, families, cars. They had all this, and they gave it all up. He admires these people, these soldiers in the fight against the status-quo. He thinks it's beautiful.

Well, okay, he can be honest. He knows they didn't "give it up" so to speak, but more-so lost it because of their own individual vices. That's okay though—he knows it takes a space shuttle to break through the orbit of a sheltered life. And once here, he can see that they understand how much better it is to live this way, unconcerned with the petty stresses of a "normal" life. The people who come to these shelters don't care about missing their kid's soccer game or getting a sales report in on time. All they care about is the only thing a person should care about: surviving.

At times like these, when he isn't actively working to show them the way, the ordinary people of Gotham make him seethe and simmer. They make his shoulders spasm and his fingers ache. They make him sick.

Sicker, even, than psych med withdrawal and a concussion.

But, two weeks later, he's feeling better.

The company's really gone to shit without him, so he decides it's time to take over the helm once again.

His city needs someone to lead it towards a better and more fulfilled life, and he has dedicated himself body and soul to this task, thankless though it may be.

He may not be the nicest boss, but he is nothing if not generous.

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i'm sorry; nothing really happened in this chapter. i'm having trouble bridging the concrete plot elements i want to include with the subjective nature of the joker's psyche. and, yes, that sounded way too pretentious for fanfiction. oh well.


	5. a discussion

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**5: a discussion.**

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At 4:00 in the morning at the edge of town, Alfred decides that he hates many things. He hates the cold, the smell of fish, and the way that salt seems to ruin every piece of clothing it comes into contact with. He hates the fishermen who come out at dawn and sneer at his suit and loafers. He hates this meat storage locker that Bruce calls headquarters nowadays. He hates having to come here before the sun rises, a time when he should be nice and cozy in the second bedroom of a center city penthouse. He hates the way the thermos never really keeps the tea warm enough. He hates how strongly tea tastes bitter. He hates how strongly sleeping pills taste of chalk.

Alfred steps into the storage unit with his packages and the morning paper and trips the mechanism that makes the elevator descend. As he arrives in the main room he begins to call out his master's name, but pauses for a moment, disoriented. He was expecting the eyeball searing brightness of the wall-to-wall fluorescents, but instead the only light comes from the vaguely green mess of computer screens at the end of the room. In front of them, lit up by the sickly light is the man he's had charge of since he was a boy. A man he feels like he hardly knows anymore, sometimes.

"Master Wayne," says Alfred, "I do think it would behoove us to restrict these trips to our temporary headquarters to daylight hours. The workers might begin to notice something a little fishy about seeing a reserved old gent like myself walking into a locker, and remaining in said locker for hours at a time, not to mention of course that this all takes place in the wee hours of the morning." He juggles the portable tea set in his arms, steps off the fully sunken platform, and strides towards the figure of his employer in silhouette. "No pun intended," he starts to say, but the words die on his tongue.

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"I had this dream yesterday," says the Joker. "Listen to me."

He grabs the side of the psychiatrist's face. "I had this dream. In this dream, I was back in Arkham, but it was a twisted Arkham. The walls were all red and rusted iron and they flaked off, and instead of a cell they shoved me into this sort of…stall thing. Like a horse stall. Are you listening? Three walls and a door open on the top and bottom. I flipped out the top and knocked out the guards and escaped. Really now, it's stupid to keep inmates in a stall. But I guess that's why it's a dream, right? Although I wouldn't put it past those shits at Arkham to do something so idiotic." The Joker grins and pushes his tongue between his teeth. "I escaped down that dark red hallway," he continues, "and into this open sort of atrium deal. It's like I've stumbled into a mansion, and everything's white walls and sandalwood. And there are windows. Got that? Everything's so light. I ran down this staircase and at the bottom of it is some young guy cop. I took him out easy, stole his gun…and that's when I heard the girl."

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"Master Wayne?"

Bruce looks up from the newspaper he's been bent over for the last half hour. "Yeah, Alfred. What's up?"

Alfred stares into the eyes of his young employer, but finds nothing there but honesty, so he looks elsewhere. He studies the screens all around him, glowing like phosphorescence in a midnight pool he once saw in Indonesia.

He can't seem to tear his eyes off the face in the monitors; the paint smeared lips, the greasy vaguely green hair. He studies the yellow teeth and the rotten eyes. Those eyes which are not so honest as his master's. They leer at him from every angle, every inch of the display. They make him feel unwell. "I thought you might like some tea, sir," says Alfred timidly.

Bruce looks back down at the newspaper, where Alfred sees an article about the latest incident at the schoolhouse. Here too, the mug shot face of a clown sneers. "Yeah, sure. That'd be great."

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"This girl, she's got a gun too. She's coming down the stairs all slow like. It's like she's looking for me, head turning and gun held ready like something out of a primetime drama. I pop out from the corner and shoot at her, but my gun just clicks. Damn thing's out of bullets. Thing is though, I'm standing right in front of her but she doesn't notice me. I mean, I'm standing on these god damn stairs, right in her face with a clicking gun loud as hell. It's basically a neon sign flashing "Here I am! Defenseless! Come take me back!" And yet…and yet she just looks to one side and then to the other side, advancing towards me but never actually looking at me."

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Alfred places the thermos on the desk and sets out two plastic cups. He pours the tea into both of them, and then with a quick look back to make sure his master is still engrossed in his paper, takes the bottle of sleeping pills out from his jacket. He carefully picks one out and breaks it in half. He drops the halves into one of the cups, and then puts sugar and cream in both. He hands the dosed tea to his master and leans against the desk with his own. They really ought to get another chair down here if construction on Wayne Manor was going to take much longer. Maybe a bed too, and a kitchen. And a radio that receives more frequencies than just the police channels.

Bruce puts the newspaper to the side and wraps both hands around the warm plastic cup. "It's been two weeks, Alfred. Why hasn't he done anything? Why hasn't he made a move?"

"Maybe he's recuperating, sir. It seems like you gave him quite a beating the last time you two met."

"No, no," says Bruce, shaking his head. He leans his head against the back of the chair and takes a deep breath. "He's planning something, I can feel it. I can tell." He takes a sip of his tea and chokes a little. "Christ, Alfred!" he exclaims. "A little less strong next time, maybe?"

Bruce chugs the rest of the cup and places it on the desk, once again picking up the newspaper. Alfred says nothing. He stares into the milky brown depths of his tea and frowns slightly. The tea won't give him any answers, but it is at least a comfort. His master hasn't been the same since he lost Rachel. Alfred had feared another episode like when the boy lost his parents, but thankfully that outcome had managed to be avoided. He isn't sure if he likes what has happened instead, however.

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The Joker releases the doctor's face and sits back in the leather armchair. "That's weird right? The girl and the not noticing thing. But actually, that's not why I'm here. I'm here for a totally different reason. I just thought that, y'know, it was an interesting dream and maybe it would help you psychoanalyze me or whatever it is you people do. To tell you the truth, I don't really know what it is you guys do. I've always been skeptical of...well I mean, here's the thing. You get paid excessive sums of money to do…what? You sit around, and you listen to people complain. I could do that. I do that now. You wouldn't believe how god damn _chatty_ people get when they think they're going to die. Stick a grenade in their hands and all of a sudden they have to talk about their kids and their wife and their sick sick grandfather. Don't they understand that nobody cares? _I _don't care. People…those people make me sick. I can't believe I ever used to be like that. I didn't want to face what I had inside. I denied it, I pushed it away. It's unhealthy.

"But now, I've accepted it. I, and the Bat too, we understand those deepest and darkest parts of ourselves. We've seen the worst people that we can become, and that knowledge has sent us running into the streets."

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"Will you patrol tonight, Master Wayne?" asks Alfred at length.

Bruce lets out all his air from between his teeth and reclines in his chair. He throws the paper onto the floor. "I guess," he says tiredly. "Crane's out again, and the Russians have already got a new leader. They've been dealing down by the eastern docks. I was thinking maybe I'd go and rough them up a bit." He rubs a hand across his eyes and forehead. "Or maybe not. I don't know. I should probably put in an appearance at that...thing. The new show. The one that's opening tonight."

"Would you like me to see if I can arrange an escort?"

"Maybe," Bruce says. His hand settles over his mouth. "Maybe."

A few moments of silence pass, both men lost in their own thoughts. Alfred finishes his tea and packs away the tea kit. Bruce sits forward and begins typing away at one of the consoles. Alfred sneaks a quick peek and sees that he's researching the doctors' notes from the Joker's brief stay in Arkham.

"They say that they couldn't find anything wrong with him. How can that be? The man is insane…how can they find nothing wrong with him?"

"Maybe he isn't insane, sir?"

"He kills people, Alfred!" Bruce snaps. "Of course he's insane." He scrolls down a little in the document and continues reading. "All murderers are at least a little insane. Dehydration and vitamin deficiencies treated with an IV. They had him on carbamazepine and lithium. Bipolar-disorder? Makes sense I guess. Friendly with nursing staff and doctors, cooperative with treatments. Refusing or unable to share history. What's this? Typewriter? What in the world is that about?"

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"This is still not what I came here for." The Joker sighs and looks around at the various degrees on the wall. "I wanted to ask you about these…daydreams I've been having; these…hallucinations. Truth be told, I find it hard to talk about. They come at random times and…they're usually triggered by some sort of noise. Like a typewriter." He tries to communicate the idea, punching the air with his fingers and clicking his tongue. "That…_sound_, like hitting keys. A noise like that. It's a full-on hallucination, too. Tactile, olfactory, visual, auditory…everything."

He props his chin on one fist and stares off at a bookcase, as if considering the titles. "They aren't bad per-se, but I'd really prefer to stop having them. It's inconvenient to zone out in the middle of a heist and wake up to find yourself in the back of a police car heading towards the MCU. And, imagine if Batsy found me! God, how awful that'd be…

"It's…almost like…a memory…but it can't be. I mean…I don't really…how can they be memories? I know my past. I mean, I know it _mostly_. It's just…sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another…"

The Joker grins. "If I _have_ to have a past, I would prefer it to be multiple choice.

"But, what do you think? I want to hear your opinion. I want your advice."

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Alfred studies the tense lines of his employer's shoulders, and thinks that their breadth is much greater than it used to be, and maybe much greater than it should be. This newfound obsession worries him of course, but the butler knows that no advice he has for his master will be heard. And because he is not one to waste words, he instead stands silently, a guard protecting the boy who could almost be his son (if he really thought about it hard enough) from night terrors and closet monsters. He fancies that while the Batman might get to protect all of Gotham, he alone gets to protect the Batman. Unfortunately for someone as outspoken as himself, sometimes that means keeping his mouth shut.

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The Joker rips the duct tape off the psychiatrist's mouth, and immediately the man starts screaming. "They always do this," mutters the clown to no one in particular. "I've sound-proofed the room, you idiot!" he yells, but the man is too far gone into hysterics to hear him. He cries about his wife and his kids and his dog. He cries about money and life and help.

The thing is though, he hasn't actually sound-proofed the room, so the Joker knows he has to think of something quick before someone hears and comes to check.

He pulls out his most wicked looking knife, and suddenly the man shuts up.

He grins. "That's much better!" he says.

"Now tell me what you think about my case," he asks, but the psychiatrist faints before he can get any answers.

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Alfred waits, and in a little while Bruce is yawning over his computer screen. "Perhaps you ought to turn in for the night, sir," he suggests mildly. Bruce pulls a face like a petulant child. "I really ought to put in an appearance at that meeting Fox is holding this morning," he says reluctantly.

"I'm sure Lucius can hold the fort."

The billionaire thinks it over, but the decision is made for him when he yawns again, a giant one that cracks his jaw. "Then again, I'm pretty exhausted," he says needlessly. He leans back in his chair and rubs his eyes. "I haven't really gotten a good night's sleep since he broke out, y'know? I just keep thinking about what he could possibly be planning…"

Alfred keeps quiet, not wanting to get into this argument again. He feels vaguely bad for deceiving his boss, but truly he has his best interests at heart. At length, the butler offers: "Gotham will be okay without you for an afternoon, Master Wayne."

Bruce frowns, but presses the sequence of buttons on the console that Alfred recognizes as the command to power off. The billionaire rises from his chair, shrugs on his coat, and the pair walks towards the ascending platform, back towards civilization, as the leering clown faces behind them disappear one by one.

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hey. sorry for not updating for so long. i'm not the best at this, i guess. look forward to the next chapter though. the joker breaks into a department store and takes a lot of drugs. no lies. fun times.

also, props to anyone who recognized the line "if i have to have a past, i'd prefer it to be multiple choice." it was taken from alan moore's brilliant comic "the killing joke". i tried to pull an alan moore type thing here...i'm afraid it came off kind of gimmicky though. oh well.

also, alfred is the most kickass character in the whole batman franchise, obviously.


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